Amazon’s MP3 music storage service will end on April 30th

Last year, Amazon announced that their music storage service would be coming to an end. At the time, Amazon said that customers paying for the service could continue using the service as long as they did not let their $25 annual subscription expire. Amazon has now changed their policy and has announced that all paid subscriptions will be coming to an end on April 30th. Customers using either the free or paid version of the music storage service can continue streaming their music after the end date, but they need to take action now.

For those of you unfamiliar with Amazon’s music storage service, it allowed all customers to upload 250 songs for free and stream those songs through Amazon Music apps and compatible devices, such as the Amazon Echo. Customers who needed more storage could pay $25 per year for the ability to upload up to 250,000 tracks.

When Amazon initially announced that the music storage service would be coming to an end, they immediately ended the ability to upload new tracks for customers using the free tier, but customers could continue streaming previously uploaded tracks until January 2019. Amazon said that customers using the paid tier would retain the ability to upload new tracks and could continue streaming their music as long as they didn’t let their subscription expire.

It was unclear at the time if paid customers would also retain the ability to upload new tracks as long as their subscription didn’t expire. We now know that that is not the case since Amazon now says that paid customers will lose the ability to upload new tracks on April 30th. That will also be when all paid subscription renewals will end. Correction: Paid subscribers will be able to upload until their current subscription term ends, even if that is past April 30th.

Fans of Amazon’s music storage service are understandably upset that they will no longer be able to renew their subscription, as Amazon initial said they would. While Amazon never said the ability to upload new tracks would remain, it seems as though many assumed that would be the case if they didn’t let their subscription expire.

The one piece of good news is that Amazon is allowing users of the music storage service to continue streaming their tracks if they take action before the April 30th deadline. Both free and paid users can go to their music settings page and click a “Keep my music” button to retain the ability to play and download their uploaded tracks after April 30th. If you don’t opt into keeping your music, all uploaded tracks will be deleted after April 30th.

There is no longer any mention of a January 2019 cutoff for streaming of uploaded tracks for free users. This seems to imply that all customers, paid or free, will be able to stream their previously uploaded tracks indefinitely. Time will tell if that will be the case. I’m still of the opinion that Amazon will release a new network storage device this year that allows local OTA channel watching/recording for the Fire TV and local music playback for Alexa.

The Music Storage section and the Keep My Music button were not (and still are not) showing when I went to my Music Settings page on my Android phone. But they are showing when I go to my Music Settings page on my laptop. {shaking my head}

No biggie. The service was garbage compared to Google’s Music Manager and iBroadcast’s music locker. The matching never worked. It didn’t automatically monitor and upload like it claimed and it was slow and buggy. The 250k limit was the only thing they had going for them. I paid the $25 and I don’t even use it.

What makes you so sure about Amazon releasing a new media server/networked TV device for Fire TV and Alexa, Elias? Why do you feel certain about them doing that? I’m curious? Essentially? It’s Amazon taking on Plex/Silicondust/Tablo in 1 fowl swoop. Am not so sure…

Assuming Amazon Channels continues to gain networks, a lack of local channels will always keep it from being an all encompassing solution for cord cutting. You’ll never get all local channels to join Amazon Channels, so the only solution is a box that fills that gap. Just as the Echo Connect joins *old* landlines with *new* Alexa calling, a theoretical “Fire TV Connect” would join *old* broadcast TV with *new* streaming TV. Using it for local music is a stretch, but seems like a local “Amazon Drive” could do a lot more than just being a DVR.

Do you think the box with do the MPEG-2 to H.264 transcoding to Fire TV’s? Or do you think it’ll just forward MPEG-2 TS across to the Fire TV’s for native decoding…in which case Amazon would have to overhaul their decoders because the current native de-interlacing (if it even exists?) sucks. It’ll be interesting to see what Amazon does if they release their own TV box in this respect. Transcoding hardware would cost more. But who knows???

Hard to say. According to the Channels app developer, the Fire TV 3 is the only model with hardware deinterlacing, so it might only be compatible with Fire TV 3 and later devices. I’d lean towards onboard transcoding though, so that you can access the streams on mobile devices through the Prime Video app, just like you can watch Amazon Channels through the app. Accessing your local OTA channels from anywhere, kind of like the old Slinbox, would be a pretty good selling point to get non-Fire TV owners interested. If such a box does come out, it’s not going to be cheap.

Just a tip. I wouldn’t bet on the new box handling local storage playback of music, especially through voice. All signs point to all this being a play to drive users into Amazon Music Unlimited.

I’ve been having significant problem with Alexa no longer recognizing voice commands I’ve used in the past while directing me to a sample of the wrong song from Unlimited and a long sales pitch. Checked the history. She heard me right, it just kept directing me to Let’s Work by Prince from Unlimited and not The Work by Prince from my library.

The only reason I kinda think that the next box will have OTA support is because the networks aren’t playing ball with Amazon and it will help drive people into Prime/Channels. There’s also a chance they could track OTA use like Roku does and sell that information to interested parties.

What sucks about it being cancelled is back when the cloud player was a newer product, I ripped and converted over 400 CDs for my mother as a Christmas gift. Then when the Echo came out and it could access all her music right out of the box, she thought that was the best thing ever and was so happy! All of her favorite CDs a voice command away…..till now.

Sure, 3/4 of the songs are on Amazon’s streaming service (no, not happening F that)…but not all of them.

So, I go to download all her music…oops, no. You can’t bulk download. I even spoke to support at Amazon and they admitted it was an oversight and would “forward it to the proper department”. Yeah, thanks.

So far, my solution is to run a server with MyMedia for Alexa hosted at my house and the early tests work so far. I just wish I could set the default music player to MyMedia since she gets tripped up saying “Alexa, ask My Media to play….”.

Hmm. No option for that. I opened the Amazon Music App in Windows, opened “All Songs”, selected the First > Last (with a shift-click) and was able to highlight all of the songs, and right-click. No download option. I made the default directory to where the program downloads music a new and empty folder, but still no option to download. Only: Remove from My Music, Add to Playlist, Create Playlist and Edit Metadata :/

This really is disappointing. Time to move away from the Echo unfortunately. Why they would drop that meager 250 upload service is beyond me. Google has a much better model but then you have to deal with privacy concerns. Apple has match but their smart speaker is very expensive, doesn’t work with Spotify and they have a less than stellar history when it comes to sticking with speakers. At least they would be fewer privacy concerns, but at this point they are not really an option for me at least.

Amazon has been a strong proponent for cloud storage even giving the option for apps to remain there instead of downloading, music, etc.. So it would be somewhat of a departure if they are going to move to local storage for your own songs. Still that does sound plausible to incorporate it with a Fire TV device. Wonder if songs on a local device would be available wherever you are or only on devices at home on the same network.

I have just canceled my Prime subscription for a number of reasons, but one of them was this. I was invested in the Amazon eco system, but the removal of this service means i need to look at other options (Play Music and an Android TV box)

A few month’s back , when Elias posted that this was happening, I downloaded all my Amazon music to my pc, with the Google Music Manager running in the background it automatically recognized all the files and meta data and uploaded them to Google Play Music.
I have a MiBox which runs Google Play Music, with no issues, connected to my home stereo, works flawlessly. 50,000 free uploads to boot AND Google doesn’t care where you purchased them from.

Sweet. Now I have a bunch of worthless unusable Echo Dots in every room in the house… I was willing to pay them $25 or whatever a year for the rest of my life to continue using my Amazon Music… now I guess I’ll have to sell my Echo Dots somewhere and look for something else. Anything similar out there in the world? Can’t believe the amount of time I’ve wasted cataloging and uploading music to Amazon. :\